I first wrote about Cobell v. Salazar in Tikkun in March, 2008, when that Individual Trust Fund lawsuit was already 12 years old. Lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell‘s pursuit of an accounting and settlement of land use fees collect in trust by the Department of the Interior since 1887 had met nothing but delay and obstruction […]
The Conquest of Native America… Continues
One of the favorite argumentative gambits of conservatives and those otherwise unsympathetic to the making of present amends for past national crimes, is just that point – it’s in the past. It’s over. Let it go. And let me tell you something: I didn’t commit any crime. Leaving aside the validity of that argument, which […]
Honest Injun
Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr It can be difficult to assess progress in the movement to recover from the history and consequences of indigenous culturcide. Great symbolic and conceptual achievements are growing. In the former category is the Australian apology to its aboriginal population. In the latter is the 2007 U.N. Declaration on […]
Developments in Indian Country
The Ninth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues concludes today after eleven days. Among the documents produced, according to Indian Country Today was a “groundbreaking report examining the roots of Christian domination over indigenous peoples and their lands”: North American Representative to the Permanent Forum Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an attorney and […]
Indian Rights, Human Rights
I was going to post on Israel today. Recent developments are much in the news (Jeffrey Goldberg is even pausing to consider – “This is big stuff,” he says), and more than is generally the case, there is a sense of urgency, though nothing in particular is about to happen. But this is the point. […]